LAPD Murders/Homicides

The Los Angeles Police Department has gotten out of control when it comes to using Deadly Force. It’s almost as if they are using people as target practice & then they wonder why the community doesn’t trust them….

Commission to release Westlake shooting info

WESTLAKE DISTRICT, LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Officers say they shot and killed Guatemalan immigrant Manuel Jimenez when he threatened them and others with a knife. The shootings set off three days of demonstrations.

The shooting happened at 6th and Union and since that time there have been protests, and investigations. The results of one will soon be known. Tuesday members of an immigrant advocacy group sounded off about what they say the results should be.

Westlake is a district of many immigrant businesses, independent vendors and laborers looking for work.

On a typical day, it is hard to imagine the clash of seven months ago: Three nights of protests, 20 people arrested in scuffles with police.

Outrage was sparked when LAPD Officer Frank Hernandez shot and killed a Guatemalan immigrant, 37-year-old Manuel Jaminez Xum allegedly was drunk and lunged at officers with a knife after threatening a pregnant woman.

Yet that description is disputed by some community advocates and there are still some hard feelings against police.

“There was a knife found,” said Beck. “The vast majority of the witnesses described the knife, described the actions. There’s a lot of angst about this in the community and a lot of misinformation.”

Advocates say it could have been handled differently.

“Many people in the community saw that Jaminez was no serious threat to anyone. He was too drunk to walk and could barely stand and there are people who even said he didn’t have a weapon,” said Carlos Montes, Southern California Immigrant Coalition.

Since the disturbances, Beck says LAPD has opened lines of communication, establishing a Guatemalan immigrant council, conducted outreach to vendors and the day-laborer community, initiated

days of dialogue with officers who walk the beat.

For some like this woman, it has a made a difference. She says she can’t take sides on the Jaminez Xum shooting, but she says she does trust the police to protect her.

The commission will release its finding in two to three weeks. Meantime, the immigrant advocacy group plans a protest at the district attorney’s office. They say they want the officer involved in that shooting to be prosecuted.

Jury finds ex-LAPD officer liable in 2008 killing

A former Los Angeles Police Department officer, fired from the department for dishonesty, was wrong to kill a man in a 2008 shooting, a federal jury concluded Monday.

In returning a unanimous verdict against the ex-officer, Joseph Cruz, and the city of Los Angeles, the jury rejected Cruz’s account of the shooting. Cruz has insisted that Mohammad Usman Chaudhry tried to attack him with a knife on a Hollywood street and that he fired his gun in self-defense.

The jury will hear arguments beginning Tuesday in the damages phase of the trial to decide what monetary award, if any, Chaudhry’s family deserves.

The jury announced its decision after more than a day of deliberations. It found that Cruz used excessive force in the shooting and that he had acted in “a reckless, oppressive or malicious manner.”

At the time of the March 2008 shooting, Cruz was under investigation for an incident in which he allowed a teenage girl to escape his custody. Police officials concluded that Cruz had made false statements to investigators during the inquiry and fired him for dishonesty.

When Cruz filed a lawsuit to be reinstated, lawyers from the L.A. city attorney’s office filed court records in which it concluded that Cruz was without credibility. In the Chaudhry case, however, both the LAPD and city attorney’s office helped defend Cruz and vouched to the jury that his account of the shooting should be believed.

LAPD officer fatally shoots naked unarmed man in Playa Vista

> A man who had been yelling incoherently while naked in a Playa Vista street was shot and killed early Friday by a Los Angeles Police Department officer following a scuffle.

Two officers responded to a disturbance in the 5200 block of Crescent Park about 3:30 a.m. and were confronted by the man, who was not wearing any clothes and was yelling at officers, said LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith.

The officers calmed the man down and talked him into putting on his boxers, but he ran away when they attempted to apprehend him. A scuffle ensued and one of the officers shot the man twice, Smith said.

Monica Vogblacher, 51, who lives on the street where the shooting occurred, said she could hear the man yelling at the officers to “go home.” After several minutes of shouting back and forth, she heard a struggle and finally two gunshots.

Two other officers responding to the shooting were involved in a traffic accident in the 4200 block of Centinela Avenue. They were taken to a local hospital with minor injuries, Joseph said.

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Victim of LAPD’s fatal shooting in Westlake was unarmed, witness says

September 9, 2010 | 2:03 pm

A Westlake resident who said she witnessed the LAPD’s fatal shooting of a Guatemalan day laborer said Thursday she saw no knife in the man’s hands, contradicting the Police Department’s account.

“He had nothing in his hands,” said Ana, who did not give her last name and asked that her face be obscured on photos and on television because she feared being harassed by the police. “At the moment when the police were shooting, he had nothing.”

Ana said she was across the street Sunday afternoon when the bicycle officers with LAPD’s Rampart Division shot and killed 37-year-old Manuel Jamines, who police said was wielding a knife and threatening people in the crowded shopping district. Jamines’ death has sparked protests and violent skirmishes night after night in the area near Sixth Street and Union Avenue, leading to clashes with the police and arrests.

Ana, who said she was interviewed by police on the day of the shooting, gave her account Thursday morning in front of a phalanx of television cameras and reporters during a press conference called by community activists. The activists said she contacted them after seeing a flier they passed out in the area.

She said she had just come out of a travel agency and was walking down the street when she heard the officers yell “drop the weapon” in Spanish. She said the man appeared drunk, and was having trouble keeping his balance. He stepped toward the officers, but it appeared to be an attempt to keep from falling forward, she said. Ana said she gestured to the man from across the street, trying to get him to turn around and let police arrest him.

But less than a minute after she first heard the officers’ warning, an officer fired two shots into the man’s head, Ana recalled. She said the impact from the shots, which she said were fired from about five to six feet away from Jamines, were such that blood splattered to the other side of the street where she stood.

Ana, who works in a school cafeteria, said she has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years and believes that police have been over-aggressively cracking down on street vendors and seizing their products.

After the press conference Thursday, she met with state Assemblyman Kevin De Léon, (D-Los Angeles), who was on his way to a meeting with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck.

De Léon plans to ask the chief for a thorough and complete investigation into whether the shooting was justified, but believes opportunists are seizing on heightened emotion in the neighborhood to push their anti-police agenda.

“There are individuals exploiting the death and being opportunistic,” he said. “They’re not helping the situation.”

Beck, who was heckled while trying to calm residents at a community meeting Thursday evening, has promised a fair investigation.

Police shoot, kill man armed with fireplace poker in North Hills

Police shot and killed a 21-year old North Hills man who they say was armed with a metal fireplace poker and had advanced on a police officer.

The shooting occurred Thursday at 12:30 p.m. in the 8300 block of Burnet Avenue during a call of a man who had a history of suicide threats. When police arrived, family members directed the officers to the man, later identified as Oscar Morales.

Officers encountered Morales in the living room area of the house.

He initially appeared to cooperate with officers, but then, armed himself with a fireplace poker and advanced on an officer, police said.

Police shot Morales when Morales refused to drop the fireplace poker.

Morales was shot in the upper torso and fell to the floor. He was taken to a local hospital where he failed to respond to treatment and died.

Officer Davis Giron, an officer with 10 years, five months on the job, was identified as the officer involved.

Force Investigation Division responded to the scene and were investigating the involved shooting investigation.

Steven Eugene Washington, 27, reached into his waistband for what officers believed was a weapon, authorities said. Although no weapon was found, officers said they feared for their lives because Washington did not respond to their commands and appeared to be reaching for his waistband.

Hours after the shooting, Washington’s relatives criticized police and said the dead man had suffered from learning disabilities and was generally afraid of strangers. They insisted that he was not violent and that he probably was walking home after visiting a friend.

Ramona Ripston, the ACLU executive director for Southern California, said in a statement that the LAPD needs to provide more information to justify the shooting.

“We urge the LAPD to go beyond a one-time investigation examining the conduct of the officers, and take a broader look at changes in department policy and training that could help prevent such a tragedy from recurring,” she said.

Police identified the gang enforcement officers involved as Allan Corrales and George Diego, who have served nearly seven and eight years with the department, respectively. Both have been reassigned until the probe is completed, police said.

Corrales and Diego were driving south on Vermont Avenue near James M. Wood Boulevard shortly after midnight when they heard a loud sound, according to police. They turned the marked police car around and saw Washington walking north on Vermont while looking around and touching something in his waistband area.

The officers spoke to Washington, but he approached them and seemed to remove something from his waistband, police said.

LAPD Shoot and kill unarmed motorist in South Los Angeles

UPDATE: On March 6, 2008 the LAPD releases their official statement on this shooting. The motorist was identified as Maurice LeRoy Cox, and he was not armed, but officers shot because they thought he pointed a gun.

UPDATE: On March 14, 2008 attorney Carl Douglas files a multi-million dollar claim against LAPD on behalf of Cox’s widow. At about 7:00 pm last night, a hit-and-run driver crashed his vehicle into a tree next to the southbound lane on Crenshaw Blvd just south of 57th Street. As the suspect was shaking off the effects of the collision, one LAPD cruiser pulled behind and asked the motorist to exit the vehicle. Using the bull horn the officers continued to tell the motorist to exit the vehicle but he did not respond. The officers did not approach the vehicle and were taking extreme precautionary measures as they continued to tell the motorist to exit vehicle.

About five minutes later, a second LAPD cruiser pulled behind the motorist, but the driver did not exit the vehicle and the situation appeared to be getting tense. There were paramedics treating some of the hit-and-run victims one block away on Crenshaw as this stand off continued. The air unit was now over head as several more LAPD cruisers pulled in behind the motorist.

At about 7:21pm the driver abruptly exited the vehicle and began to back peddle away from the police, and after a few steps, the LAPD fired about three shots. The motorist began to run at full speed into the US Bank parking lot on Crenshaw & Slauson, entering the lot on the north side of the bank. The LAPD officers gave chase following him into the parking lot from his rear while other officers cut him off on the Slauson side. They fired on him multiple times from both directions and the suspect fell in the lot behind an LAPD cruiser on the Slauson side of the parking lot.

The suspect was on the ground and moving after being shot, and then the officers took him into custody. The paramedics arrived and transported him to the hospital. He either died in route or at the hospital.